In the last Mishnah, we spoke about how an eved (slave) is acquired and released a Jewish slave. Now we’ll talk about a slave, how he’s acquired and how he is freed. The Mishnah says a slave is acquired either through money, a document, or an act of ownership.
A master would pay for him. A Kena’ani (Canaanite) could sell himself or his son as a slave, or his master, who already owned him, could also sell him. In whatever scenario, the buyer can acquire the slave by paying the seller or through a document. With a document, the seller gives a document to the buyer stating that he is transferring ownership of the slave to the new master. The third way is through a chazakah. Chazakah is an act of ownership where the slave would have to do something for the master that would show that he’s submissive to him, that he’s listening to his directive. For example, let’s say he takes off or puts on the master’s shoes, or he gives him a bath or something of that nature, which would show that he’s obviously a slave to him.
He could also acquire his freedom by having someone else pay his master money on his behalf. It can only be someone else paying his master. He can’t pay his master himself, because whatever the eved owns, the master owns automatically. The Eved Kena’ani (Canaanite slave) is not allowed to possess anything. Everything that he has belongs to his master. So there’s no way that he could have money to give over to his master, because everything that he acquires already belongs to his master. Therefore, someone else has to buy his freedom on his behalf.
Another way he can go free is by accepting a freedom document, a shtar (freedom document), a get (freedom document), from his master. The document would free him, but he has to accept it for himself. Nobody else could accept it for him, even though we have the principle of zachin le’adam shelo befanav, that somebody else could benefit another individual even without his knowledge. When it comes to this case, we’ll say that it’s possibly not a full zechut, not a full benefit, because while the eved is living as an Eved Kena’ani, he’s allowed to have relations with the other slaves, with the shifchot (female slaves) over there. Once he’s free, he’s not allowed to have relations with them anymore. So therefore, from his perspective, it could be a little bit of a negative. An Eved Kena’ani who becomes free becomes fully Jewish, and there are restrictions to that, even though we know there’s no bigger zechut or privilege in the world than being a Jew. When it comes to the Eved Kena’ani, the enjoyment that he has while he’s a slave is there in some way, so it can’t be considered a full benefit to him, and therefore he has to accept it on his own.
This is the opinion of Hachamim (the Sages) agree that a slave could go free through payment or through a freedom document, but they say that anybody is allowed to give or accept both of these things. A slave can go free even through money that he himself gives to his master. It’s possible for a slave to have his own money, like we will explain. And he can even go free through a document that other people could accept on his behalf, even if he doesn’t know about it. According to the opinion of Hachamim, a document doesn’t only have to be accepted by the slave himself; it could even be accepted by somebody else. According to the opinion of Hachamim, it is a full zechut to him. It’s a tremendous zechut. The advantages of going free far outweigh the negatives of becoming a full Jew.
So he doesn’t have the ability to be with these goyot (non-Jewish women) anymore. But it’s still a tremendous zechut that he gets his freedom. Therefore, they would say that anybody could accept the document on his behalf, even without his consent.
We mentioned that the opinion of the Hachamim is that he could have kesef (money) and free himself by giving his master his own payment. How could he have kesef? How is it a possibility? The Mishnah says a slave can pay for his freedom if he has money that’s given to him from other people, and those people stipulate that they’re only giving him money in order for him to free himself. That money cannot become the property of his master. If they accept that tenai, if they set that tenai, that condition, then the slave could take that money. It wouldn’t automatically become the property of his master, and he could use it to buy his own freedom. But of course, a slave—Hachamim would agree—cannot take other monies that had no stipulation. Say he found money in the street, or he worked another job and got more money; he couldn’t use that money. That money is already automatically the property of his master.